Paul A Young Chocolate Afternoon Tea

Saturday being gloriously hot, I went for a little amble through Hyde Park, around Shepherd’s Market and up Park Lane. Then seeing as the sun can be so draining, my friend and I dropped in at Grosvenor House Hotel, for a spot of afternoon tea, as you do.

The Park Room at Grosvenor House is light and airy, we settled down in at a window table and nestled back into the green, plush chairs watching the world go by. A pianist tinkled in the corner, and not once, not twice but thrice did we sing Happy Birthday to various guests.

The tea they are serving at the moment comes from artisan chocolatier, Paul A Young, the Chocolate Inspired Afternoon Tea, could anything sound better? Not really. Except that we started with a glass of crisp cold Louis Roederer Carte Blanche Champagne. We then chose our teas: we both went for the Madagascan Cocoa Nib Tea, unlike any tea I had had before it had strong malt flavours, a mix between tea and Horlicks, but pleasantly refreshing.

Then they brought out the sandwiches, seven types, to be exact (seven!) including the cucumber and Venezuelan chocolate sandwich which actually worked really well together as the chocolate wasn’t sweet and the cucumber was more of just a texture. But the best part? The bread wasn’t dry – finally, there is a bread saviour! So often afternoon teas are let down by dry bread, but not in The Park Room, no sir – this bread was as a fresh as a Bel Air.

The scones were brought out after the sandwiches so that they were still warm, whilst fluffy on the inside,were a little flat and had rather crisp exterior, but that wasn’t anything that a generous heap of clotted cream and utterly delicious salted caramel sauce couldn’t sort out.

Next up were the cakes including a mini Battenburg, Earl Grey tea chocolate tart with lemon tart, and a pistachio and raspberry slice, the one that stood out for us was a chocolate sponge topped with a rich raspberry mousse. At first we were a little surprised that only one of each cake was brought out, so we just had a little mouthful of each but actually anymore and we might have been too full – that said since we were offered more sandwiches, scones and indeed champagne, I’m sure we could have asked for more.

The tea was rounded off with passion fruit curd truffles and thick slices of carrot cake to take home and then we had back into Mayfair to soak up the last of the sun. The tea is running until mid-June and I highly recommend it.